By Ben Cubby

July 31, 2012 — 12.00am

AUSTRALIA'S climate change sceptic community remains defiant following the self-described "conversion" of prominent sceptic scientist Richard Muller, who had led a vast international research effort to debunk global warming science.

Professor Muller's team, partly funded by US fossil fuel interests, has now made public its findings and concluded that human emissions are in fact driving climate change — at a slightly faster rate than that asserted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Professor Muller said the results had prompted a "total turnaround" in his views. "We were not expecting this, but as scientists, it is our duty to let the evidence change our minds."

The results were obtained by going back to re-examine more than 14 million temperature observations from 44,455 sites across the world dating back to 1753 — and excluding those that sceptics had believed were artificially enhancing global warming data.

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"Our results show that the average temperature of the earth's land has risen by 2½ degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of 1½ degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases," Professor Muller wrote.

Australian climate sceptics were largely unmoved, though some had earlier said they supported Professor Muller's research and methodology.

"I'm not convinced that he [Muller] was ever a sceptic although, of people I respect, there is a couple who do have a decent opinion of him," said Perth-based blogger Jo Nova, the author of a book called The Skeptics Handbook.

Ms Nova said she did not expect climate sceptics to change their minds because there were still potential flaws in Professor Muller's work.

"If [Professor Muller's study] removed stations that are near concrete, car parks, airports and air-conditioners, and used only the best data we have, I'd be open to accept their warming trend calculations," she said. "But . . . it's another leap entirely to say that . . . it's man-made."

The "urban heat island effect" is real — it has been documented by meteorologists for decades — but the Bureau of Meteorology removes suspect thermometer sites from its climate change measurements. The two groups of data — one for weather forecasting and one for climate — are available for public scrutiny on its website.

A prominent Australian sceptics' group, the Galileo Movement, said its views would not change at all because of Professor Muller's study. The group features broadcaster Alan Jones as its patron and lists prominent sceptics Ian Plimer and Bob Carter and blogger Andrew Bolt as advisers.

"We've based our views on empirical science, and there's nothing in the Muller study to undercut that," said the Galileo Movement's manager, Malcolm Roberts, a former mining engineer and company director.

Mr Roberts said climate change science had been captured by "some of the major banking families in the world" who form a "tight-knit cabal".

Mr Roberts said he understood that the group's views might sound strange, but claimed they were increasingly popular. "It does sound outlandish," he said. "I, like you, was reluctant to believe it [but] there are significant things going on in Australia that people are waking up to".